Mark Regev: ‘The people outside claim to be the friends of Palestinians. But by supporting a hardline, maximalist position, are they friends of the Palestinian people?’
Photograph: PR

Israel is pressing for a fresh Middle East peace initiative involving Arab states, Mark Regev, the Israeli ambassador to the UK, told a meeting at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London as pro-Palestinian activists mounted a vocal protest outside.

Regev said Israel “wants to see larger and greater involvement from the Arab world” in new peace negotiations. Pragmatic Sunni Arab states saw a “convergence of interest” with Israel in relation to Iran and had “significant cards to play”, he added. He said that Israel had approached Donald Trump’s administration about “trying to get the peace process back on track”.

Protesters’ chants were clearly audible from the first-floor seminar room at the London university college where Regev engaged in an hour-long question-and-answer session with an audience of about 60 people. There was heavy Israeli security inside, while police officers monitored the protest outside.

For the most part, Regev restated familiar Israeli government positions on settlements, barriers and checkpoints and the prospects of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

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Eric Heinze of Queen Mary University chaired the meeting and opened by saying that many people considered Regev a war criminal for his defence of Israeli actions in Gaza when he was the government spokesperson. In reply, Regev said he had done his job, “to represent the democratically elected government of Israel” with pride.

Later he said: “Israel cherishes freedom of expression and freedom of speech. To the people outside, I would say this: they claim to be the friends of the Palestinians. But by supporting a hardline, maximalist Palestinian position, are they friends of the Palestinian people? They are chanting, ‘From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free’ – meaning Israel has no right to exist. I’d like to tell them that Israel is not going away.”

Several hundred pro-Palestinian and and a smaller number of pro-Israel activists gathered outside Soas before the event, waving rival flags and playing rival music through loudspeakers.

One protester, Nadia, said she “fundamentally disagreed” with supporters of Israel being allowed to display the country’s flag, which she described as “symbol of hatred”. She said: “We should not be giving platforms to hate speech. Freedom of speech is bullshit. Democratic liberal western values are being used to excuse colonialism.”

Another pro-Palestinian protester, James, said that hundreds of Palestinian political prisoners were on hunger strike and “their voices have been silenced while the chief spokesman for apartheid Israel has been given a platform”. Soas had become an “unsafe space”, he said. “There are students with increased levels of agitation and academic fear.”

Laurence Rosenberg, wrapped in an Israeli flag and describing himself as a proud Zionist, said he had come to “open a dialogue”. He said he would be happy to see the Palestinian ambassador speaking at the university. “But at its core, the BDS [Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions] movement is against freedom of speech.”

A letter signed by more than 100 Soas staff said the event “could cause serious tension on campus and result in a charged atmosphere that will be detrimental to the wellbeing of all faculty, staff and students”.

Soas, one of the world’s leading institutions for the study of the Middle East, Africa and Asia, has a significant number of Palestinian students and pro-Palestinian activist groups. The small minority of Jewish students at the school have complained of feeling uncomfortable and unable to speak freely on campus.

Since the start of the academic year, Regev has visited about 20 UK universities, including Oxford, Cambridge, Manchester, Manchester Met, King’s, UCL, Queen Mary, Imperial, Bath, Bristol and Birmingham. His was the first visit by an Israeli ambassador or diplomat to Soas since 2005.